More and more companies are streamlining their businesses by incorporating managerial systems that help them keep tabs on processes and people. Tracking inventory, managing production schedules and reporting sales figures are activities that are more accurate and easier to oversee with a management system in place. Companies often require more than one managerial system to operate fully and may turn to the expertise of a standards organization to choose and integrate an appropriate managerial system.

Definition

Managerial systems are management structures that companies use to direct actions and activities toward company goals. These systems ultimately manage resources, policies, production and people. Managerial systems typically use standard or best practices to organize, establish and implement processes and production. Standard practices are step-by-step, tested methods or models of operating a business, managing production, implementing policies and choosing employees to hire and vendors or suppliers to purchase from.

Types

Managerial systems vary according to the type of information being managed. For instance, the managerial system used to manage a company's occupational health and safety requirements varies from the one used to manage information security or production quality. Other types of managerial systems include environmental, social accountability, employee recruitment and customer service knowledge systems.

Managerial Systems

In some cases, managerial systems may overlap, such as a document management system, which may dovetail with legal requirements, accounting needs and information security. Supply chain management is another managerial system that may be adopted over several departments including manufacturing or production, distribution and purchasing. Managerial systems that are used across multiple departments generally incorporate a software management tool that shares up-to-date data with all users and locations.

International Organization for Standardization

The International Organization for Standardization designs managerial systems that are followed by national and international companies. ISO's standards include management systems for environmental, energy, quality, social accountability and risk management. When a company states they are ISO compliant, the company is indicating to customers, vendors and the public that they have implemented ISO standards and have received a review from an ISO trained inspector. ISO management standards follow a “Plan, Do, Check, Act” cycle of management which translates to establishing a plan, implementing a plan, measuring results and correcting and improving the plan.